Chin should resign as AG while he runs for Congress

Attorney General Douglas Chin’s announcement that he’s running for Congress is no surprise, but Gov. David Ige’s decision not to ask Chin to resign while he campaigns is surprising and troubling.

The attorney general is Hawaii’s top law enforcer, and our state has always held that law enforcement and partisan politics don’t mix.

Keeping the AG out of politics is the primary reason for making the position appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Legislature rather than elected by the people, as 43 states do.

If the AG is allowed to deep-dive into elective politics without stepping down from the job, we may as well join the other states in letting the people elect the people’s attorney.

Chin is entering the Democratic primary for the 1st Congressional District seat being vacated by Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, who is running for governor.

He joins three formidable contenders — Sen. Donna Mercado Kim, Rep. Kaniela Ing and City Councilman Ernie Martin — and Chin, who has never run for office, will need to devote much attention to fundraising and introducing himself to voters.

Ige’s assurance that Chin “is aware of the prohibition of campaigning using state resources and state time and … will follow the law” is less than comforting.

Little known in his previous roles as top aide to Peter Carlisle when he was mayor and city prosecutor, Chin has aggressively used the AG job to elevate his visibility — mainly via his legal attacks against President Donald Trump on immigration and some 20 other issues.

Even supporters of the tough stand against Trump have questioned Chin’s unprecedented stream of media pronouncements from an office that has traditionally refrained from personal promotion.

There’s little doubt the heavy public relations that made his candidacy viable will continue as the race unfolds, and Chin will lose any benefit of the doubt on his motives as it becomes impossible to separate official press releases from his campaign.

Which makes it disingenuous for Ige to claim that Chin needs to stay on because “we have important cases that are in progress that I think are fundamentally important to our state.”

The opposite is true; Chin’s campaign creates many potential conflicts in representing the state’s best interests in those cases, some of which involve labor, business and other powerful interests whose political and financial support he needs.

No matter how straight he tries to play it, Chin will be suspected of working out deals for campaign support with the wide array of people and organizations who have legal issues before the state.

Public trust in Hawaii law enforcement has been battered by federal corruption charges against former Honolulu police Chief Louis Kealoha and questions involving city Prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro’s conduct.

Chin and Ige should be helping to restore trust, not deepening the mistrust.

Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com.